taruskin, richard - russian musical orientalism

7/28/2019 Taruskin, Richard - Russian Musical Orientalism

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Russian Musical Orientalism: A PostscriptAuthor(s): Richard TaruskinSource: Cambridge Opera Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Mar., 1994), pp. 81-84Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/823764 .

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CambridgeOpera ournal, 1, 6, 81-84

Russian musical orientalism:A postscriptRICHARD TARUSKIN

In a little study of the orientalist trope denoting sensuality (nega)in nineteenth-centuryRussian opera, '"Entoiling the Falconet": Russian Musical Orientalism in Context'(this journal, 4 [1992], 253-80), I closed by observing that Chaikovsky, alone amongmajor Russian composers of his time, seemed immune to the lure of the East, and thathis only orientalisingnumbers were two late and insignificant items: the Arabian Dancein TheNutcrackernd the Moorish physicianIbn-Hakia's aria n the one-act opera Iolanta,which shareda double billwith TheNutcrackern their joint premiereduringthe last yearof the composer's life (18/30 December 1892).

By disregardingmy own advice and looking only for ethnic verisimilitude,I failed todo the orientalisttrope justice. Chaikovsky,I laterrealised,had made obvious and tellingrecourse to it, quite earlyin his career, in the love themes from RomeoandJuliet (1869;revised 1870, 1880), written just as the composer was getting over his infatuation withthe soprano Desiree Artot, the one woman known to have aroused his sexual interest,who had disappointed him by marryingthe Spanish baritone MarianoPadillay Ramos.The frank sensual iconicity of this music is often remarked upon. Usually it is thethrobbing, panting horn centrepoint that is so recognised; but the themes evoke negajust as surely by means of the chromatic pass between the fifth and sixth degrees thatwas identified in 'Entoiling the Falconet' as one of the cardinalorientalistmarkers;andthe first love theme (the one generally associated with Romeo) features, on its firstappearance, the equally marked English horn timbre (see Ex. 1). Juliet responds toRomeo's advance by mirroringhis descending chromatic pass with an ascending onethat is then maintained as an oscillation (osculation?), while Romeo's ecstatic re-entryis prepared by reversing the pass and linking up with the striking augmented-sixthprogression that had launched Chaikovsky's 'balcony scene' to begin with (see Ex. 2).At the climax, delayed until the recapitulation,Chaikovskyenhances carnalityby addingone more chromatic pass at the very zenith of intensity to introduce the last fullstatement from which the love music will then graduallysubside (see Ex. 3). Steamierthan this Russian music would not get until Scriabin discovered Tristan, good threedecades later.

Having located the source of the steam, I recalled that I was not the first to do so.In a marvellously cruel letter to Chaikovsky (1/13 December 1869), Balakirev, theinspirer and the dedicatee of Chaikovsky's 'Overture-fantasia' and a connoisseurnonpareil of musical orientalism, reacted to the four main themes of the work, whichChaikovsky had sent him for inspection while composition was still in progress. Hereis what he had to say about the big love theme:... simplyenchanting. often play t and havea greatwish to kissyou for it. It has everything;nega, nd love's sweetness,andall the rest ... [I]t appears o me thatyou arelyingallnaked nthe bath and thatArt6t-Padilla erself s rubbingyourtummywithhot scentedsuds.I havejust

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Richard TaruskinEnglishhrnviola con sordino

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one thing to say against this theme: there is little in it of inner spirituallove, only the physical,passionate torment (coloured just a wee bit Italian). Really now, Romeo and Juliet are notPersian lovers, but European.... I'll try to clarify by example. I'll cite the first theme that comesto mind in which, in my opinion, love is expressed more inwardly:the second, A-flat major,theme in Schumann's overture, TheBrideofMessina.1Indeed, Schumann's long wet noodle of a love theme, which reaches no climax, doesseem as if by design to moderate the orientalism of Chaikovsky's, diluting the chromaticpasses and replacing the lascivious English horn with a chaste clarinet.Balakirev's letter confirms the surmise that Chaikovsky used the orientalist tropemetonymically, to conjure up not the East as such, but rather its exotic sex appeal. Thelittle tease about Art6t is provocative indeed, precisely because it is so plausible. If, asBalakirev seems to suggest, Chaikovsky had cast himself as Romeo to Art6t's Juliet,then the theme becomes a self-portrait. And if so, then it is another instance where, ina manner oddly peculiar to the Russian orientalist strain, the eastward gaze issimultaneously a look in the mirror.

1 Sergey Lyapunov, ed., PerepiskaM. A. Balakireva P. I. Chaikovskim St Petersburg, 1912), 49-50.

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83ussian musical orientalism: a postscript164A . 5 1 6

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Ex. 3 RomeoandJuliet,bars 366-9.


taruskin, richard - russian musical orientalism

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